This Coffee Ain't From the Bay Area

I really don't like the whole "if you don't trust us don't follow us" response. It's so unnecessarily defensive and not really something I expect to hear from someone as thoughtful as Patrick.

I personally see Giant Bomb as the last US-based site worth paying attention to. If I had a gripe with the way certain things were carried out, I'd hope it would be taken as encouragement instead of insult.

yea, but at a certain point, these guys get that same question all the time,

so, it's the easiest way to answer that question, and although Patrick is thoughtful, sometimes his answers are a little run-on, a little efficiency goes a long way.

I agree with you about the article. It did kind of boils down to a lot of "I liked the female characters story potential more than Joel, but because games are sexist the protagonist had to be a male." and I don't think that says anything about sexism as a problem. This is not the game to pick on.

The representation of women in the game is a different issue, but the main thing that jumped out at me was complaining that you play as a male character, and equating that to sexism.

Always good to hear from you Scoops.

If you're looking for board games, I highly recommend Shadow Hunters if you can manage to get 6-9 players together. It's an incredibly fun game which starts out with players trying to work out who their allocated allies are and often ends with big twist or surprise plays out of someone who has been fairly quiet all game. It's a blast.

Other than that, games like Agricola, Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, and Small World are all fantastic staples which suit 3-4 players perfectly and you can't go far wrong with any of them as an entry point into board games. Hope you get the chance to give it a shot sometime, let us know how you get on!

@patrickklepek STALKER Endurance Run? Oh fucking hell yes!

Still the most ahead-of-its-time FPS for a long while with its unscripted world and survival management.

I have 9 hours on it, would give me a good reason to continue.

patrick you should watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEikGKDVsCc

You going deeper into games like Monster Hunter, Dark Souls and STALKER gets me real excited Patrick. Looking forward to seeing what you do!

I live out in Colorado and it sounds like you may have been talking about Hanging Lake. You mentioned near Rifle, which is a bit west of Glenwood Springs. Hanging Lake is just a bit east of Glenwood Springs. If that is where you went, it's an absolutely beautiful hike with a great payoff. Colorado National Monument is also spectacular. Hopefully you caught a sunset/rise while you were going over the Rockies, they're quite amazing.

As for boardgames, everything Y2Ken mentioned is great, i'd also like to add some two player suggestions for you. We live up in the mountains, so it's often just me and roommate playing, so if you find yourself with only one other person to play with, these are some great games.

Rivals of Catan, while technically a card game, not board game, is a great version of Settlers of Catan redesigned to work as a card game for two players. The board game is also excellent, but you definitely need at least three players.

Stone Age is a great resource board game that scales up or down really well, so with only two people, or the max, you'll have a good time, although I definitely recommend buying an extra set of the resource tokens for more than two players.

Pandemic is also a game that allows you to play with more than just two, but still works really well if that's all you have. It's also one of the best cooperative board games out there in my opinion. You play against the game trying to cure diseases before they basically get out of control and you have a worldwide pandemic. It's incredibly fun and makes a great introduction to cooperative board games.

I'd also highly recommend you check out two websites:

boardgamegeek.com is a great place that has information and forums and the like for pretty much every board game ever made. It's a great way to find out more about various board games and gauge your interest in them.

Tabletop is part of the Geek And Sundry YouTube channel, hosted by everyone's favorite geek, Wil Wheaton. It's kind of like Dinner for Five with geek celebrities playing a boardgame instead of eating at a fancy restaurant. It's also what reignited my interest in board games over the past year.

Good board game suggestions, I'll add some.

Dominion is fantastic, aslo a card game, but its super easy to pick up and play. Games are very fluid and only about an hour.

X-Wing Miniatures is also a very easy game to pick up. It sounds a bit complex being a minis game but its actually very simple and has a lot of fun strategy.

And if you aren't afraid of a more complicated game Arkham Horror is the best Lovecraft themed game out there. I wouldn't jump right into this one, its got a lot of cards and bits and seems a little intimidating at first.

I support Patrick , I want that guy on Giantbomb all i can get

Glad you're back! This was actually the video that made me a subscriber. I saw it on the homepage and wanted to see how you were doing/ what you were up to.

The problem I see actually comes from both sides, and that is very simply that both sides are over-simplifying the issue to an insulting level. The issue is nowhere near as simple as "This game has a male protagonist" NOR "these games have strong women, therefore there is no problem," but far, far too many of the loudest proponents of both sides want to force the narrative to be that. Because things like subtlety and nuance are actually difficult to talk about on a platform like the internet, so both sides have just decided that screaming at each other at the tops of their lungs is the solution.

Scoops!!!!! Love how much more Patrick the site will be getting. I would kill for a weekly Scoopin'

@patrickklepek

What lies between a quick-look and an endurance run? THE DEEP DIVE!

Sounds good to me.

Boo on the anti-free speach talk, particularly if we're paid subscribers. You can't say you want open debates and simultaneously suppress opinions considered "wrong" only by someone's personal standards.

Patrick has a lot of interesting content ideas for the site, and as much as it bums me out to see him leave the office and crew, I feel like he'll be able to expand and execute on those ideas more completely now. A lot of GB's standard content has gotten quite stale for me, and I feel that Patrick has the potential to breathe some fresh air into this site, and even usher in a new era of great content.

Can someone answer me this in a PM, so as to not turn this comments section in a spoilerfest:

What was the ambiguity Patrick was talking about, in relation to gender identity, in The Last of Us? Was it about a specific character? I'm thinking of one but I don't believe it's the answer...

Ugh tired of this feminist shit. Glad I'm subscribed to thunderf00t

Damn, July 3rd must be cursed for Patrick. A year ago his father dies, then this year Ryan dies? Jesus. That is pretty strange, and kind of freaky.

@tehjedicake said:

Good choice!

So much social justice nonsense.